Souldate
by captainodonewithyou
Summary: AU. Your timer stops ticking when you meet your soulmate-except Daisy doesn't have a timer. Or a friend, much less love. Enter an odd girl who seems to want to spend time with her and her older brother who, like Daisy, has no ticking timer on his wrist. Neither Daisy nor Lincoln have soulmates, so obviously they are going to be bitter best friends forever. Just friends...*really*.


5/2/96, 1:01 PM

They always tease her for not having the ticking ink lined into the skin of her wrist, but she pretends it is just because her skin is thicker than theirs. "It's a tragedy, really," is the story Miss Mary, or Margaret, or Maddie—the one in charge of her home—tells her one day when her skin is a little thinner than usual and she is dragged away from the pointing fingers and giggles and nagging that she can never quite shake. The girl with the blonde braids and the smirk tugging at her lips deserved Daisy's fist in her face, and she stands by the action even as she stands in the corner of the social worker's office, shoulders hunched, making herself small beneath the older woman's hard gaze.

She keeps her bare wrist pressed tight to her side and tries to stare bravely back at the woman.

"Some of us lose our Other. Some of us aren't made an Other. It is rare, it is a tragedy—it happens."

She says 'us' like she understands, but Daisy's eyes drift resentfully to the neat steady little numbers all in a row on the woman's bony wrist.

"Did you ever think not everyone even wants an Other?"

When she says it she thinks she is being brave, but Miss Mary, or Margaret, or Maddie—tells her she is being petulant. That she'll understand when she is older.

8/14/04, 4:15 PM

She meets him when she is older.

She is still in the home but she goes to a school in the city, because the private high school next door grew tired of her disruptions.

("She draws far too much attention."

"The other children can't focus around her… oddity."

"Can you blame them for being uneasy?")

No one at the Home is paid enough to fight for her so she walks the dark blocks every morning and every night, clutching a sharpened pencil against the straps of her backpack and brandishing her thick skin like a security blanket as men in the shadows jeer after her.

"Hey, the Unmarked!"

"Why not have a little fun?

"Isn't as if you've got anyone else waiting on you."

She has found through trial and error and far too much difficulty clamping down on her tongue that telling herself she can't hear them is the best way to pass through.

She still tenses when she hears footsteps closing in on her.

When she whirls to face the pursuer, knuckles white around her pencil, she is shocked to face a girl-tidy and gangly with a smile that is kind but entirely no-nonsense. She goes to school with her, is new—she sat in the empty space beside her in Chemistry, earlier, tucking her tie neatly into matching sweaters and following even the rule about hair-ties.

"I can't believe you left without me, Mary," she glowers and Daisy stutters but catches herself at the pointed glimmer in the other girl's eye.

She stands a head taller than her and walks straight and tall and if the men are still calling after her, the safe demeanor the other girl exudes muffles them out.

She doesn't want her to know where she lives, or see her wrist, or stick around long enough to not want to anymore—the little kindness is so warm and it is a comfort foreign to Daisy.

(She tells her she is Daisy. The girl tells her she is Jemma.)

("My brother is Unmarked. I saw your wrist when you exploded your solution in class and nearly killed us all. I thought you might like to know, you know—that you aren't the only one. I think he might.")

She smiles again, less business and more teeth, when Daisy moves off the sidewalk toward the Home and waves goodbye.

"Maybe you'll meet him at lunch period tomorrow?"

8/15/04, 11:42 AM

She doesn't because she is behind the slide on the empty playground, making out with the dark-eyed boy who sits behind her in reading and writes her poems that make her feel like he is a star in her solar system. He has pretty words and tells her she is Unmarked because she is a wild card with the potential to break anyone's heart. He tells her she is breaking his and she believes him.

The girl still smiles that no-nonsense smile at her when she comes in flushed and takes her seat beside her in the lab.

She walks home with her after school.

10/26/04, 3:47 PM

It continues that way a while—passed poems scribbled in margins and teeth scraping as he presses her into a hot slide and warmer smiles and slower walks home, until the poems grow fewer and the slide grows cooler and one day, Jemma isn't waiting for her after school.

An equally lanky boy is leaned against their spot on the wall, hair tousled and eyes on the ground.

Daisy notices his unmarked wrist first.

"Daisy?" He sizes her up as she approaches and he is Jemma's brother, she can see it in the kindness of his eyes—but the gentle timbre of her voice is not matched in the roughness of his.

(It is a question for another time).

"Lincoln."

It both doesn't and does answer his question, and she catches his eyes lingering on her own bare wrist.

She feels naked.

"My sister—Jemma," a brief interlude where she can see his internal monologue asking him why he felt the need to make the obvious clarification—"she asked—well, told—me to walk you home."

Why rises sharply to her tongue and she nearly doesn't catch it.

"Alright," comes out instead.

She knows people are watching because they always are, but somehow, the stares feel sharper. Angrier. Somehow she feels more wrong.

It makes her mad and she thinks it leaks into her already abrasive demeanor as she walks in silence next to the boy with a softer smile and darker eyes than the girl she has grown accustomed to.

(That night, she wonders how the clear blue shade could possibly haunt her so stormily).

10/27/04, 11:24 AM

She tells the boy with dark eyes, the next day, that she loves him, really, but she wants to eat with her friends (the word is so soft and misplaced and full on her tongue)—and they have their first fight. His words grow thorns but she won't let him see her bleed.

She sits next to Lincoln because she thinks Jemma must have psychic damn tendencies and because something unrelated draws her there—something she can't put to words—and both siblings look sufficiently shocked to see her.

("See, Lincoln, I told you she wasn't a vampire."

"It's going to take her a lot more than sitting at a lunch table to disprove that hypothesis, Jem."

"Do you two make a habit of discussing people while they are sitting next to you, because if so, I have suddenly realized why I was prime friendship real-estate.")

To his credit, Lincoln pretends they said more than two words to each other the night previous.

To Daisy's credit, she plays along wonderfully.

She likes that they both have Jemma's best interest in mind. Likes that they both know how much getting along means to her and likes that they both care enough that she almost, nearly, feels a part of something. The feeling is warm. She takes note of it.

She likes how when she assures Jemma her older brother was the most perfect gentleman, everything short of dropping his coat in the puddles, he waits till Jemma is focused on her sandwich to flash her an amused smirk that brightens his dark eyes, if only a shade.

She likes that she slips right in between their big words and bantering like she has been there all along.

And then she gets too comfortable and the question slips out of her before she can catch it.

"We were raised mostly separate."

The air is tense and Daisy holds a straight face but internally is kicking herself again and again, until she bleeds.

"Jem and our parents only just… moved over."

She sees him twisting his empty wrist nervously and thinks of her own Home, of the two girls who had graduated just last year with similar conditions to she and Lincoln.

She understands.

They both are waiting for her at the wall outside school, later.

11/23/04, 10:02 PM

Daisy sees Jemma's clock stop ticking before she does.

They are at the bookstore because Jemma loves reading and Daisy loves being around Jemma—which is a statement she finds tested when she drags her to the dusty back wall of the stretching shelves to weed around on the shelves labeled "Science." She isn't too shy to tell her as much and Jemma isn't too shy to tell her to shove it.

Jemma is too smart to climb on the goddamn shelf to reach a book bigger than she is, but excitement outweighs reason and moments later she, the shelf, and the boy with unfortunate timing grabbing a copy of a textbook woefully near her ass all come tumbling down.

"Oof, bloody—I'm so sorry!"

Daisy is laughing because she is really a terrible friend and because the boy has broken Jemma's fall—and really, it could be the science-lover's personal heaven, sat on a cute boy's chest and buried to her hips in books. She tries to swallow the laughter as she moves forward to offer an assisting hand—and her eyes catch where the numbers on her wrist are no longer ticking.

12/3/04, 11:30 AM

His name is Leo Fitz and Daisy absolutely despises the fact that no matter how desperately she wants to hate him, she can't.

"It's Leo. Er, well, Fitz, actually. I can't stand Leo…"

He'll stutter on for hours, watching Jemma like she's the only thing in the world and more often than not forgetting he even has a sandwich.

"Tie."

She raises her eyebrows at Lincoln and smirks.

They won't say they are bitter but there is no denying they are (she knows the twitch of his wrist and the ice in his eyes), and they make an icy game out of the couple's happiness—smiling and nodding and hissing things to laugh about later back and forth all the while.

She draws her smile wider as Jemma recalls something hilarious Fitz said a couple nights back.

"Whose?"

Lincoln chokes on his chocolate milk and she doesn't flinch.

3/19/05, 5:04 PM

She waits hours for her boyfriend to show up beneath the slide after classes as they promised, only to catch a bus crosstown to his house and find he has been kissing another girl all along.

She calls Lincoln.

Her tummy swirls and her vision blurs but she clenches her jaw and forces the feelings back into the lump plaguing her throat.

"I need a ride. The bus isn't coming. I need to get out of here Lincoln, please hurry."

The words keep spilling out when she starts talking and he stays on the phone with her until the shine of the family car blinds her from the end of the road, catching beams of the sunset and throwing them at her.

It's only when the warm light burns against her skin that she realizes just how cold her spot on the curb is.

She is all talked out and he drives her back to the Home in silence, not pressing—but she feels his eyes on her all the while nonetheless.

It is when she has been pounding on the locked door of the Home for what feels like ten minutes to no avail that the lump is burning in her throat again and she thinks maybe, just maybe, this will be the time her thick skin breaks.

Steady hands hold her together.

"Daisy, stop. Just come back with me. You're going to hurt yourself."

She doesn't know when he got out of the car and all of her senses are hotwired, reacting in tune with the heavy pulsing in her throat. She turns from the door preparing to shove him off of her—preparing to yell and make a scene and force the lump to give way.

Her hands make it to his chest but then she is crumbling into him because the pressure has overflown and anything would be better than letting him see the tears.

He holds her tight while she sobs into his shirt and her senses hotwire to him, instead.

(His parents scream at him when he gets back; she hears the echoes in the walls of the bedroom he has snuck her into. Jemma is out of town on a field trip Daisy had no inclination to join and the lump is gone but suddenly, she realizes how bad of a plan this really is.

Their parents would never approve of her best friends' choice in companionship.

She thumbs self-consciously at the place her timer should be.)

"You can stay in Jemma's room. I doubt my parents will bother you there."

"Can I stay here? Just a little longer?"

He sinks tiredly to the carpet in front of her, and the darkness in his eyes is freshly charged and undistilled when he smiles softly.

"As long as you want."

The quiet is nice, but she has never been good at choking back her tongue.

"We're lucky, you know."

An eyebrow shoots up, but he says nothing.

"We're not obligated to anyone. We don't have that stupid One and Only that can be destroyed forever. We're just… floaters. We don't have to worry about breaking hearts, because we aren't actually obligated to anyone."

("You aren't a wild card, Daisy! You aren't special at all. You're just a screw up who is desperate to be something she isn't, to mean something when you mean nothing at all."

She didn't know words could be a weapon until he held them to her throat).

Lincoln's eyes are so much softer, and when he smiles again it is crooked and just tense enough for her to notice.

"I guess you're right. Another pro, if we're doing this; no ugly matching ties. Ever."

He actually makes her smile.

"Being a bitter asshole is so much more fun with a friend," she tells him, only half sarcastic, and his expression doesn't change.

8/24/06, 3:00 PM

Jemma and Fitz make all the efforts they can to protect her, but Daisy's first day back at school after Lincoln has graduated is rattling.

As a unit, they were unshakeable, and people knew it.

People also like to poke things when they think they are vulnerable.

In bed that night she holds a phone in one hand and an ink pen in the other. His number is dialed—he told her to call.

He got as far away as he could and god does she wish she could have followed.

She puts down the phone, refusing to be the anchor that ties him back—regarding the pen instead. She uncaps it and brings it steadily to her wrist.

"10/26/04, 3:47 PM"

They are entirely random numbers but she admires how they look, stark against her pale skin.

The phone rings.

"How was the first day? Beat anyone up?"

She stares at the numbers until they blur.

"There's a new history teacher. Rumor has it his clock stopped for Dr. May."

Lincoln's scoff is enough to make her forget they are miles and miles away.

"Hasn't May's been stopped for years already?"

Daisy sighs dramatically.

"Unrequited love. How refreshingly scandalous."

He laughs fully then, and she thumbs at the numbers on her wrist until they are just a line of black.

8/23/07, 8:53 PM

The apartment they rent together is hardly anything special. It is just off their University campus-the door sticks and the bathroom tiles are chipped but there are two bedrooms and a semi-functional kitchen and it is away, far away from the memories they've both taken great care to leave out of their carefully stacked boxes and bags.

It isn't much, but together they can afford to fund their escape-and that is everything.

Lincoln puts on an upbeat Elvis playlist loud enough that Daisy is certain their neighbors will be turning up to complain, but his smile is so bright she can't bring herself to tease him for it-and the rhythmic strumming proves to be the perfect soundtrack to begin unpacking their belongings into their little space.

"The oven door sticks."

"I assure you that is never going to affect me."

She wanders into his bedroom as it is growing dark to check on his progress-he's got his phone to his ear and she takes the cue to be silent, instead wandering to the desk in the corner where one little framed picture stands among his heaping piles of books bigger than she is.

Her and Jemma smile back up at her, hugging each other tight and making the most ridiculous faces they can muster. It was from her birthday, she recognizes the abnormally bright sweater her friend is wearing. Before he left for college, she broke into the school library after dark and printed a copy-not because she couldn't have during the day but because the break in felt more appropriate. It had been a joke, really, presenting him with a picture of her and a shit-eating smile to boot.

("Isn't it the best present you've ever gotten?")

She didn't realize he kept it.

"I'm going to make mac n cheese."

He is off the phone now, moving up behind her-and at his words she turns excited to face him.

"With the little star noodles?"

He smirks, but there is affection in the gesture.

"I'm offended that you think I'd make anything else."

7/3/13, 11:00 PM

Fitz and Jemma get married but the only buzz in the crowded church is regarding the fact that the maid of honor and best man's wrists were matching, and not in the way that resulted in a pretty chapel wedding. They tried to convince the bride and groom again and again to pick best-people that would not detract from the attention of the day.

Their friends prove more stubborn than they know.

When they can't take the dirty looks anymore she steals a bottle of the first hard liquor she can find and they retreat to the hotel room they are, probably indecently—according to most of both halves of the family, sharing.

It has never been like that with them—they've been roommates for years now to battle their dually tiny paychecks—but really, they love nothing more than to feed the rumor mill.

They heap on the carpet in their fancy clothes and slightly battered egos as she pries the lid off the clear liquor and takes a swig before handing it to him.

(She thinks he is further away. Their knees are nearly brushing).

She is already buzzed from entirely too many glasses of champagne and it doesn't take much to throw her far over the edge.

"Fitz's aunt was a specimen. She wanted to know what it was like, being a 20-something year old virgin." He says it in the way that tells her in no uncertain terms that he is not a 20-something year old virgin, and she doesn't love how the realization hits her.

She swallows it back with a burning chug from the bottle.

It's not as if she is, either.

He reaches for the bottle, fingers tangling with hers in the interchange.

"What did you tell her? Something good, I hope?"

He smiles, that crooked thing that only makes an appearance at his absolute sloppiest, and she can't stop the laugh that bubbles up her throat at how pleased he looks at the response he still hasn't filled her in on.

"Honestly, Lincoln, you're such a damn nerd it probably wasn't even the lack of a timer that had her questioning whether you've been laid."

Her words slur and are probably a little meaner than entirely necessary, but he knows what to expect with her and somehow only smiles wider, rolling his eyes.

With no warning he reaches for her bare wrist, cradling it in his palms and brushing a thumb over the spot where her timer should be. She refrains from drawing back, watching him with slightly concerned intrigue.

"How awful it must be for you! In your prime and never with a special lady!"

His Scottish accent is lacking, to say the very least, and laughter is bubbling out of her so loudly she is certain a noise complaint is going to come through. She is struggling to contain herself, drunken brain fighting to keep up with the rest of her, and she presses her forehead into his shoulder, hard, as she catches her breath.

"You should have picked up some desperate girl tonight and made a huge show of it, just for Auntie Fitz."

"Desperate? Wow, you know how to make it sting. You and Auntie Fitz would probably get along great."

They're both folded over each other laughing now, and the liquor is lost somewhere between them but it is really entirely at fault for what comes next.

"You know, you technically still could pick up that desperate girl and show her judgy ass just who has game and who doesn't."

He goes down ahead of her and she loiters at the bar till he approaches, saying something about goddamn Scots in a pleasant tone that they'd perfected in the days where they still regularly made fun of the couple they are celebrating tonight.

She makes a point of glowering over his shoulder at the old lady she thinks is probably the one he is referring to.

"It awes me that you are so concerned about protecting my honor," he says in her ear, and she tries to smile sweetly back.

"Aww, babe, I'm the only one allowed to make fun of you."

(She thinks she kisses him because she notices for the first time how his arms flex and because she is still imagining him kissing someone else who is only kissing him because there are no ties on his wrist. She thinks she kisses him because behind all their slurred jokes and loud laughter there was that vein of seriousness that they hated to pop, that unspoken reality that always was hidden beneath. She thinks he kisses her back for the same reason—frantic and needy as they fumble to shut the door of their room behind them until it is slammed and she is pressed hard somewhere between the solid reminder of where they are and what this wasn't and him.

There is something so comforting about his body against hers.)

7/4/13, 8:23 AM

She wakes with a pounding head and a racing heart, tangled in sheets and limbs and his gentle breathing and she allows herself to stay in that safe place in his arms until his breaths change and he shifts and they both are clinging to each other and pretending they aren't.

"That probably should never happen again," she says weakly into his chest.

She is holding his wrist and thumbing at the approximate place a date should be.

He agrees.

7/5/13, 3:01 PM

They are both very good at ignoring impertinence. It is like nothing has happened.

3/29/14, 1:32 AM

They've had fights in the past; when he quit medical school she wouldn't speak to him for weeks. When she started seeing her high school sweetheart again he made passive aggressive jabs until it ended the same way it did all those years ago. They'd fought over who left a mess in the bathroom and over whose turn it was to vacuum and over the dog Lincoln brought home that Daisy didn't want to lose their rent deal over.

None of those fights compare to the one that lands Daisy at Jemma and Fitz's door at 2 in the morning.

Fitz answers and fills with concern when he sees her, drawing her in and calling anxiously after Jemma as he settles her on their couch with the fluffiest blanket he can find.

Jemma rubs her eyes tiredly as she walks in, but is immediately alert when she sees her friend.

"Did something happen to him?"

No, she shakes her head. He is fine.

At least, she thought he was.

("What's this?"

He'd won the vacuum battle; she'd found the suspicious flyer on his nightstand.

He paled when he saw that it was what she was holding.

"Daisy, it isn't—"

"So, here's the thing, since this blatantly, in bold, tells me exactly what it is, I was asking as a formality and to test your response. And you just fucking failed."

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"It isn't what you think," he repeats, shaking his head slowly, eyes fixed on hers.

She doesn't know what else it can be.

"I need to get some air."

"It's midnight."

She slams the door behind her.)

Jemma pretends the news doesn't shake her but Daisy knows her friend better.

"I thought he didn't think we were broken."

Her voice is small. Jemma stays with her until she falls asleep.

Her eyes stay fixed on the row of numbers on her friend's wrist.

3/29/14, 7:00 AM

She remembers the first day she spent away from him and the scribbled timer she had drawn on her arm in high school and wonders when what he thought became so goddamn important to her as she flutters between dream and wake.

It takes her a moment to register loud banging on the door, and a moment longer to hear the voices when it stops.

"Is she here, Jem? Please, just tell me she's here."

"She's here."

"How bad?"

Jemma doesn't answer.

"I was never going to go through with it."

His voice is smaller now than before and Daisy squeezes her eyes tight to fight the urge to go to him.

"Then why did you keep the flyer?"

A pause.

His voice lowered further.

"I just wish I had an excuse not to pretend anymore."

3/30/14, 10:43 AM

She goes home and he tears up the flyer and pledges to take over vacuum duties for the next month.

She thinks the deal favors her but she doesn't argue.

5/4/14, 7:03 PM

Jemma is pregnant and Lincoln and Daisy spend the night coming up with a whole new set of reasons why Unmatched is the superior state.

"If I got pregnant, people might actually respect me more."

"If you got pregnant, Auntie Fitz will call the Pope and have the world made aware that you are Holy and Immaculate."

"I wonder if it's genetic."

"Immaculate conception?"

"Being Unmatched, dumbass."

"Oh." His eyes fall, humor suddenly lost from his expression.

She isn't sure it should trouble either of them as much as it seems to.

2/14/15, 4:00 AM

Fitz calls to tell them Jemma is in labor. Their parents are already at the hospital when they arrive and even though Daisy brushed her hair and changed out of her pajamas, she feels like a mess when his mother eyes her disdainfully.

She thinks they like to pretend being Unmatched is a global issue that she is the root of. She shifts uncomfortably beneath the dual hard gazes of her best friends' parents as they sit in awkward silence in the waiting room—till Lincoln's hand drapes almost unconsciously over hers, framing her fingers protectively.

She doesn't pull away.

He steals a rose from the hospital garden and presents it to her as they leave that night, neither entirely capable of finding anything negative to share about the tiny pink baby they've spent the day holding.

She isn't sure she has ever seen any of her three friends so happy.

"It's Valentine's day, isn't it? It would be a tragedy for you to go through Valentine's day without a single awful flower pun."

Her eyebrows raise.

"Shouldn't you be giving flowers to your girlfriend?"

He is ridiculous and she loves how his cheeks go pink every time she refers to the girl he has been seeing.

(He was supposed to spend the day with her but Daisy watched him go to a corner and explain the scenario quietly over the phone as soon as the hour was at least semi-humane. His cheeks had gone pink then, too.)

He scratches behind his ear, smirking sideways at her and pretending the pink hue isn't there.

"They are named after you, aren't they?"

"This is a rose, not a daisy."

She bites back the dumbass, and she isn't entirely sure why.

"Fine, give me my rose back," he chides with faux offense, and she holds it nearer to herself.

"No."

He smiles.

4/5/16, 11:25 AM

"I don't know why you two don't just get married."

Jemma's life is hectic, but there is still a place and time for everything, including chiding Daisy.

She snorts.

"Me and your brother?"

Jemma looks up from the baby formula she is mixing, her brow shooting up.

"Yes. What, is there something wrong with that?"

Daisy laughs, glancing around the little apartment that is definitely too small for the young family.

"I think your perfect life is getting to you. He's dating that nurse. I am, shockingly, not that nurse."

She mutters something indecipherable, and it is Daisy's turn to raise a brow.

"What was that?"

Jemma glowers at her and she knows she won't be repeating whatever she's said, twisting the cap on the bottle she has been preparing and shaking it.

"Look, married life is not for either of us. You know that."

Her tongue catches just slightly on 'either,' because the softness with which Lincoln held onto his niece that morning in the hospital is still very present in her mind.

Her friend actually stops moving, eyes widening dubiously.

"Daisy, I love you and my brother dearly, but I need you to listen to me very closely because I am too tired to say this more than once."

"…alright?"

"You two are married minus the part of marriage that we simpleton Matched actually consider the good bit of marriage."

"The good bit of marriage also requires mutual attraction," she grumbles, because it is the first thing that she can think of. Jemma is shaking the bottle again but shakes her head.

"Just because you don't have a bloody tattoo—you two are hopeless."

She swallows.

10/9/16, 6:24 PM

Daisy stops by the grocery store on her way home from her job at the local weather station because it is Lincoln's day off and she hasn't taken a turn doing the shopping in probably a month—which isn't her fault.

(Maybe only a little).

At the vegetables a hand reaches for the same potato she does—a shining ring on her finger but no numbers lining her arm. She gets to the potato first but as she looks up, the other girl smiles and slips it into Daisy's still outstretched palm.

"I get next dibs," she says, but her eyes size her up a moment until they alight with recognition. "Daisy?"

She doesn't recognize the girl and it probably shows in the furrow of her brow, but she nods as she tucks the potato into the bag she has shaken out.

The stranger's smile softens.

"I'm Bobbi. We… we were in the same Home."

There is no easy way to say it, but the girl struggles to find one anyway, friendly smile growing strained as she fails, running her fingers through the curls over her shoulder—diamond on her finger again catching the light.

Daisy remembers her hair.

"You're married."

She says it because she can't think of anything else to say and needs to say something. Bobbi is taken by surprise a moment, but then glances down in the direction of the hand still tangled in her hair, cheeks going flushed.

"Engaged, yeah."

She is perceptive or Daisy isn't subtle or possibly a bit of both, as she catches her gaze shifting to her blank wrist. The change in her expression is imperceptible—but there is a realization nonetheless.

"You should know, Daisy—" Bobbi's own eyes glance at Daisy's matching blank wrist, and back at her. "His timer. It stopped for me," she is sizing her up carefully, genuine care in her expression. "but that wouldn't have changed how we feel about each other, one way or the other. Your timer…it doesn't dictate who you fall in love with. It just takes note of it happening. You know that, right? You know you don't need it, regardless of what they say?")

She is in the worst sort of mood when she finally shuffles through their fifth level door, groceries hung up her arms until she reaches the counter and deposits them none too gently upon it.

"I was getting concerned. Thought I was gonna have to launch a search party to dig you from the deep scary depths of the grocery store."

His smirk shrinks behind a veil of concern when she glares coolly at him.

"I'm not in the mood."

He frowns.

"What happened?"

She ignores him, rifling through the bags in an absent-minded attempt to begin to put their contents away. She feels his eyes glued onto her and can practically feel how desperately he wants to press further, to drag out whatever it is she is closing him off from.

He helps her unload the bags in silence.

"Lincoln?"

Hmm?"

"Thank you."

12/5/16, 9:13 PM

It is a rare Friday that they both are off work and home and fed and happy. They are playing his Pokemon DVD's because the cable has been out all week and because on Wednesday he suffered through her Big Brother fix-but she has made her discomfort fully known, sprawling out over the whole couch when he refused to budge on his show option.

He hadn't been phased, lifting her feet and settling into the cushions, grinning mischievously at her.

(She retaliates by leaving her feet sprawled across his lap).

"I'm going to ask her to marry me."

"Wait, what?"

It's the wrong thing to say but nothing floating in the air around them right now is right.

"I'm going to ask her to marry me."

The first time he says it his tone is uneasy. This time, she does not miss the sharp edge and the way the words quiver.

She perches up on her elbows to find his eyes already watching her reaction carefully.

She didn't even realize they were that serious.

She knows how much he likes her.

"Okay."

She isn't entirely sure what else to say, but the hardening of his expression tells her that it isn't what he wanted to hear.

She can't find any other words she is capable of dragging all the way to her tongue.

She doesn't want to ruin this.

His mouth opens like he is going to say something but he closes it, turning back to the television-and she thinks she is in the clear, when-

"I guess hoping you might at least pretend to be happy for me was asking a little much?"

The words have an icy bite and she'd usually have to clamp on her tongue and fight back her response, but heavy silence holds her again.

She pulls her legs to her chest as she sits up fully, and immediately misses his warmth.

He is still staring at her, but his expression isn't angry-his eyes are wide and watery and his brow furrowed.

"I didn't know you wanted to get married."

It is the wrong words again and somewhere in her she knows it is a lie, but they are all she can draw out and his expression doesn't change-he just shakes his head once, slowly.

"That's because I knew you didn't."

It doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense.

He goes to his room, leaving Pokemon flashing across the screen in front of her.

Leaving her.

1/12/17, 1:15 PM

They are on odd speaking terms. Polite speaking terms.

He tells her she has to meet her, and it isn't in a commanding tone but Daisy agrees, even if all she remembers of her in the past is her colorful flowered dresses.

She never thought of her as permanent.

To her credit, Jemma seems just as shocked to hear the news, falling silent over the phone line.

"He has always wanted children," she tries to reason out loud, "I suppose he does like stability…"

Daisy can tell she is convincing herself as much as she is convincing her-not at all.

"You're my best friend and you're both obviously going to be permanent fixtures in my life. Please make at least a vague attempt at friendliness."

"I'm always friendly."

They meet at Jemma and Fitz's new place for reasons undisclosed; a snug little single level on the outskirts of the city.

She wears a flowered dress again and is she is beautiful and warm and reasonable and far more friendly than Daisy could ever begin to be.

("Don't worry, getting this one back into med school is on the short term goals.")

The ring on her finger is shining and small and blue and Lincoln.

The timer on her wrist is ticking.

Daisy has learned how to bite her tongue.

Still, when his eyes linger on her, something in her wants to be heard.

"She is sweet, Lincoln, really. And you two seem to be very taken by each other."

Jemma is snuggled up tight in Fitz's arms on the fluffy couch Daisy adores. It has been hours since she left but their apartment is a good drive without the rush hour factored in, so they have settled in for a while.

Lincoln's cheeks go red at his sister's words.

Daisy feels her eyes on her, but she can't manage to add anything. She can't think of anything negative to say and even if she could she would never want to. He is too happy.

She thinks that his face falls a bit regardless.

They are in front of their apartment door when the words finally catch up to her so forcefully she thinks she could cry. She catches his wrist as he reaches for the handle, and he looks startled down at her.

"I'm so glad you have her, Lincoln," she says after a pregnant breath, fingers tightening subconsciously around his wrist. "I... " she draws a smile across her lips and hope it doesn't come out as tightly-strung as she feels.

His eyes are scanning hers closely, too closely.

"I'm glad that you are so happy together."

She has to let go of his wrist, has to let him open the door and tear his eyes off of her-and it's then she realizes why he has always held her so tightly.

It's too late now.

2/28/17, 12:32 AM

She has never seen him so tightly strung and she has never felt so debilitatingly crumbling. It was easier, when he was smiling and laughing and blushing because she could tell herself that letting him go is right. That letting him go is what was best for him. That someone else is what is best for him.

But planning a wedding is hard and planning a wedding without a single stopped timer to show for it is harder, and his hours at work are longer-and when she sees him, he is never smiling.

He was supposed to look at listings with her tonight-he'd argued, of course, about her being the one to move. But no other options were remotely viable and she wasn't petulant.

She just wishes she didn't feel like he was doing everything in his power to avoid her.

("I have to stay late, Daisy. I'm sorry."

"Oh."

"Boss put me on the extra shift… all those storms have taken out a lot of lines."

"Right."

"I'm sorry.")

(She didn't have any reason for calling Jemma after she hung up with him, not really-she just needed to hear a voice that didn't sound like it was miles away from her.

Fitz picked up.

"She's at her parents with Maggie."

"Oh."

"Are you alright?"

"Not really."

"I'm on my way.")

He puts on a pot of plain-noodled mac n cheese before he crosses to the living room where she has sunken back into her spot on the couch, staring hard at the wall and telling the burning in her eyes that it is all in her head.

"You can say it, you know. To me."

He picks his words carefully, watching her closely-and all she can do is meet his searching eyes reluctantly.

"I'm not sure I follow."

He looks rightfully dubious, shaking his head slowly-and it is all she can do not to break eye contact.

"It may be too late to act now, but do you really want to keep making the same mistake?"

She feels her expression harden as she bites her tongue instinctively, and the annoyed shift in his eyes tells her he notices.

She forces her jaw to unclench.

"You can't tell Jemma because he's her brother-she knows, mind you, but of course you still can't muster it-and you obviously can't tell him, but what the bloody hell is stopping you from telling me, hmm?"

He is raising his voice in the most uncharacteristic fashion, working her nerves in every way he knows how, grasping for the response that weighs heavily down on her tongue.

She suddenly isn't interested in mac n cheese, or company, or Fitz at all-rising to her feet and turning towards her room, fighting back the lump that has shoved it's way into her throat.

"What is stopping you from just admitting it to yourself, Daisy?!"

His words stop her as efficiently as if he's reached out and grabbed her, and suddenly the heaviness is all around her-pulsing loudly in her ears in the tempo of her heartbeat and burning in her wrists and she whirls around, vision blurred.

"He's happy, Fitz! He's marrying her and he is getting the life he wants to have," she can hardly make out his form two feet in front of her as she brings the back of her hand to scrub angrily at her tear filled eyes, struggling to hear past the frantic beat of her heart. "It doesn't matter how much I say it, it won't change that and I could never want it to. Never."

Her voice is crackling under pressure and she wants to turn around and lock herself behind her door but she is so heavy and the words are still tumbling out.

"I can't have him. I love him, alright? That's what you want to hear, isn't it? I love him. I don't need a goddamn clock to tell me that I love him."

Her final words crumble and break and she is clenching her fists too tightly at her sides, nails biting her palms and words sinking in the room.

There is a blurry, slow movement somewhere back behind Fitz.

The soft click of the front door being pressed gingerly shut.

She finally finds her feet.

3/4/17, 10:03 PM

He stays late at work and she locks herself in her room as soon as she gets home. It is inefficient but she doesn't have to see him. Doesn't have to face him.

She can pretend that maybe he didn't hear her words.

She has locked herself away with vodka this time, at least, but it sits capped on the floor by her armoire. It tasted too sweet, too much like a white church wedding and fluffy hotel sheets and disapproving auntie's and her regret.

It doesn't taste enough like sharing it him.

The floorboard creaks outside her door.

"Can I come in?"

There is a note of pleading in his voice that makes her ache.

"Please, Daisy. We need to talk."

A pause.

"I need to see you."

She isn't sure why she unlocks the door, but when she lets it fall open, she doesn't move aside.

There are dark circles shadowing his bloodshot eyes and his shoulders are sunken with exhaustion, and she thinks that she hasn't been imagining the restless creaking of his mattress through the past few nights, after all.

She knows she must be imagining the slightest perk in his stance when his eyes find hers.

"If you want to talk about…" her voice breaks off, and she can't find the words to say it. "I think we had better not ever revisit that again."

She thinks he will fall silent, lower his head, back down-but he doesn't flinch, expression going somewhat defiant as he shakes his head.

"Daisy, the last time I agreed we 'had better not,' I regretted it the rest of my life."

He takes her breath, for the briefest moment, but she drags herself back down, rubbing annoyed at her tired eyes, trying to hold on to whatever thread of reality she can find, trying to ignore the heartbreaking edge of hope in his eyes.

"This isn't a drunken one night stand! Lincoln, we missed it. We missed our shot and it's too late to go back."

He falls silent a moment, eyes still softly taking her in. Then;

"October 26th. 2004. Right around 4, probably-I didn't have a watch, but school let out at 3:30 and you without fail took a remarkably disproportionate time to actually leave the building."

His breath is bated as his gaze holds her, waiting. When she doesn't immediately respond, he continues, softer.

"It's the-"

"Day we met. I know."

Her response only makes the hope grow a little brighter, brow lining in his concentration on her.

"I looked. To see if your wrist stopped."

She presses her lips together, letting her eyes drift shut as she shakes her head once, slowly, a spurt of breath escaping her nose.

She thinks if she opens her eyes and sees the expectancy written into every line of his face, it'll break her.

She opens them anyway.

"You're engaged."

Her voice comes out small and for the briefest moment, his eyes drift ashamedly to the floor. Her heart thuds.

"No. Lincoln, no."

His distraught appearance suddenly makes sense to her.

"I couldn't go through with it. I couldn't," he peers sheepishly back at her through his lashes. "I'm an ass for calling it off. I know I am," his words gain more traction and he runs an anxious hand through his hair "but I'm less of an ass than I'd be if I'd gone through with it knowing full damn well…"

She rubs at her eyes again, this time more in disbelief than anything. Her head is pounding.

She has never seen Lincoln knowingly cause a wave in his life.

"She was good for you. You were good together, Lincoln-how could you just throw that away!?"

She knows her tone is less than patient, less than kind-and his jaw clenches.

"I couldn't put her through it-put myself through it. Put you through it."

She is only getting angrier, shaking her head and feeling her brow furrow tensely.

"Why do you do this shit, Lincoln? Go halfway and quit? You're throwing out your chance at the life you really want!"

She can see his frustration in the swell of his chest as he scratches once behind his red ears, wide eyes pleading with hers.

"Daisy, this is the life I really want! Whatever the hell this is, with you-is it."

His voice is raised and tense but softens into desperate tones and her heart catches in her chest.

"It wasn't fair for me to stay with her. I'd never love her like I love you."

She kisses him because she loves him, too.

(6/7/21, 9:36 PM

There is no timer on the little pink arm attached to the cooing baby with her father's eyes.

He is on a chair pressed close to her bed, hand resting in her lap where tiny fingers have captured the tip of his finger.

"I guess it's genetic after all."

"I can guarantee you she was not immaculately conceived. You were there."

"The timer, dumbass."

He rolls his eyes halfheartedly and she smirks, freeing a hand from their sleeping baby in her arms and reaching out to him-running her fingers along his jaw, knotting them through his hair and urging him closer, pressing a fleeting kiss to his lips before ghosting hers over his ear.

"Good.")


End file.
